About a year and a half. That’s how long I have been here, observing friends and neighbors raising livestock. I thought it was something that other people were able to do and I was not. Much the same way I felt about playing on a team in high school. I didn’t particularly want to be on a team, but I did think that IF I wanted to, I couldn’t.
I have since worked out in so many group classes over the years that I think I could have pulled it off. I also realize that being on a team requires a mental state of collaboration with team members, not just brawn, as I was a soccer mom for ten years.
My sport’s analogy is to suppose that practice makes up for some lacking in natural ability, whether it’s toward sports or hopefully, farming. I do not write those words lightly or take for granted the lessons ahead.
I have been able to observe through freelance interviews at farms or neighbor’s barbecues, that while some folks are more casual than others, so many people here raise something.
My favorite store is Tractor Supply and I can’t get over the cute signs and mugs and towels with witticisms and devotions to the love of raising chickens.
I have met farmers who have done serious research, sometimes backed up by a degree in agriculture, on how and what and when to feed their livestock. They know the instant one of their chickens or cattle aren’t quite themselves and have a vet on call. I have also had people stop me from dumping what was left on my plate at a cookout, and directed me to put the questionable remnants of a meal (pasta, cake and all) into the chicken’s bowl as, “they’ll eat anything.”
My suffering from various bug bites led to a recommendation to adopt guinea fowl. I never heard of them and quickly have come to respect the breed. My understanding is you don’t exactly have them as they have free range dispositions, which cause them to roost in trees. If one is attempting to raise them from chicks, strategies can be employed to encourage them to sleep in a coop at night, but ultimately, they follow each other all over the place and often the neighbor’s place as well.
They are one of the oldest types of poultry. While chickens do well with one rooster per flock, the monogamous guinea fowl are often found in pairs of hens and cocks that mate for life. The females don’t always make the best parents if on their own, but when paired with a male, they do well together.
Wild guineas roost in trees, but if adopted as young keets, they can be trained to roost in coops. They feed on insects and seeds and are known to be used for tick control. While some people eat guinea fowl, they have roughly half the fat of chicken and therefore the meat is less flavorful.
Farmers and gardeners have praised guineas for not only controlling ticks, grasshoppers and flies, but also sounding the alarm if a fox, coyote or visiting dog comes on the property. They are said to make a high-pitched call that can be heard by all and can fly up high in a tree to avoid the offending predator.
A friend who raises a variety of farm animals, primarily cattle, suggested I check out the local livestock auction on a small animal sale day. I did.
As I sat in the crowd among folks in cowboy hats and Amish straw hats, I asked a woman nearby about guinea fowl. She said she had a flock and loved them, but I had just missed them being sold for $7.50 each. She said that was a good price. I was only researching and still fascinated with the auctioning of animals, the handlers aptly displaying a variety of livestock with techniques for showing each.
Recently, a rogue flock of guineas was on our road. They were hanging out near a neighbor’s driveway around the corner, then…they appeared in our yard a few days later. They pop up at different times from various directions. I hear their busy chatter, as they travel in a close knit flock. They spill out of the woods onto our yard and comically follow and tumble over one another making their way through to the safety of the trees at any other point in the yard.
They move as a unruly unit and are not quiet about it. We went for a walk in the woods the other day and they crossed the yard where we were coming back home. We stopped to watch. They looked at us and continued, each bumping and banging past/over an old grill grate by our fire pit.
Days later they crossed behind a hanging bird feeder, hopping up on bricks to collect seeds that smaller birds had dropped. We had been happy to have sunflowers pop up in the yard from the bird seed. I saw the towering stalks being felled by the roaming band of guineas as they passed. In all fairness, we are coming out of a drought, so I doubt the sunflowers were able to hold on to any soil at all.
One day when I was composting, they passed through the yard. I said hello, they acknowledged me warily and hung out for a few seconds, before one of them looked in another direction and off they went following each other, a moving mass of feather, muscle and soft, happy chirping, combing the grass for bugs.(click here for video)
I am smitten. Stay tuned.